To the dismay of many pundits, the predictions based upon aggregating state polls were overwhelming accurate about election results.[1]

Sophisticated businesses are increasingly using “big data,” often from the Internet, to understand what their customers want and value, and to help them provide those goods and services efficiently. Big data is also re-shaping sports analysis, as demonstrated in the book and movie “Moneyball.” It only makes sense that political prediction is now better done, as in these other cases, by assessing data than by relying on insiders and pundits who purport to have specialized knowledge. It turns out that their knowledge is often biased, and that using more data is better.

The predictions based upon state level polls were remarkably steady from the late summer. They showed a small but real Obama lead nationally, with a stronger lead still in the Electoral College, especially in the all important state of Ohio. The conventions moved Obama’s numbers somewhat positively; the first debate improved Romney’s numbers; and then momentum slowly swung back to Obama after the other debates. (Hurricane Sandy may have helped the President a bit at the end, but data suggest not much.) All of these movements were relatively modest compared to the basic underlying support numbers.

The survey data illustrated what was a very steady race for voters. Most voters, even many supposedly undecided ones, had all but made up their minds — with a small but steady edge for Obama. Only if most of the undecided broke for Romney, especially in the key swing states, could he have won the election. Polling done well before Tuesday’s election showed that undecided voters breaking mostly one way was highly unlikely. (Indeed, RAND ran a tracking poll of undecided that demonstrated this.)

Not only did the state polls predict well in the Presidential election, but they were also incredibly accurate in predicting state-by-state U.S. Senate elections. There were many close races, within a few points, and the last aggregated set of polls was right on in almost all cases.

So, this is a victory of prediction for data analysts like Nate Silver of the Five Thirty Eight blog, Sam Wang of the Princeton Election Consortium, and Drew Linzer of Votamatic. All of them aggregated the state level polls, each using different assumptions (but based upon data) about altering some that seem biased in certain directions. Paid political pundits may pooh-pooh these approaches, but 2012 was not the first election in which these approaches were highly accurate.

To be clear, these polling aggregators are different from political science models that try to predict voters’ choices, sometimes months before the election, using what they believe to be underlying patterns of voter choice, based upon prior Presidential elections. Those models focus overwhelmingly on the state of the economy. Political scientists produced 13 such quantitative models by early September – five favored Obama; five favored Romney; and three showed a tie. While these are useful modeling exercises, to understand why voters lean in one direction or another, they are not as good as using pre-election, real-time polling data. One of the most interesting economic conundrums in this election was that, despite a relatively weak economy under Obama, more voters still blamed President George W. Bush for the weak economy, than blamed Obama.

By the way, in this last set of poll predictions, the true toss-up states were Virginia, Florida, and Colorado, all of which were very close, though Colorado favored Obama more than predicted. For all the talk by pundits, results in Wisconsin, Iowa, and Nevada were not that close, and the key state of Ohio came out about exactly as predicted.

While this is a very important story that will help us understand future elections better, it is no surprise if many in the media ignore or deny this phenomenon. Media analysts prefer a close election that is hard to predict – it brings more eyes to their sites. But, as with so many other forms of information today, if some smart bloggers can utilize data to be more accurate than pundits, many citizens will find that information on their own.

Paul Teske is dean of the School of Public Affairs at the University of Colorado Denver.